After looking up Alvin Ailey, I really appreciate your kind words, dcarch and everyone. Now, on to Daughter-san. Her year has been consumed with the college application process and with finishing high school. Getting into college is not what it was when I was a kid; it is much harder and more stressful today. Kids seem much better prepared, admissions are more competitive, and college costs are an order of magnitude higher. It is easy for kids and their parents to get sucked into the vortex of expectations, ambition and status. We got pulled partway into that mess, but thanks mostly to Daughter-san's level head, we got through it. She will be attending the Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. It is a smallish liberal arts honors college of 700 students, with their own building, faculty, advisors, and dorm, in the midst of a 30,000 student university. I think she'll have the best of both worlds - a small school with personal attention, and a big school with a diverse student body and endless things to do. She'll be about two hours from home, which seems to me like a nice distance, and will allow her to come home when she wants to, to have her little brother visit, but keep mom and dad mostly out of her hair. The university has a biology program, which is her science interest, and also a full fine arts program (BFA, MFA, design, etc) which is her non-science interest. There is talk of a double major. Finally, Eugene is one of the most livable towns in Oregon, where a bicycle is accepted and adequate transportation. Naturally, I look forward to fitting out her bike for college duty; any excuse to wrench on bicycles is welcome. Because we'll pay in-state tuition, and she's getting some scholarships by reason of being a National Merit Scholar finalist, the cost is manageable and we'll be able to send her to study abroad as much as she'd like. I've suggested that she brush up on her French! Daughter-san had an interesting high school "career" which is how the kids refer to it. She started as a shy, introverted kid who was very much a study nerd. During high school she did a lot of drawing and photography, had a two-month solo exhibition, took most of her friends' senior portraits, and ended up being voted "best photographer" by her class. Her favorite model was her brother, who was even willing to dress in drag and bite .38SPL cartridges for her senior photography project, which was a photographic interpretation of Truman Capote's "Other Voices Other Rooms". (Unfortunately for him, that project is being kept by the photography teacher as an example for future classes.) She did some interesting things, like embroidering photographic prints. She also got involved in Speech & Debate, went to tournaments, became one of the team's officers and placed second in State in her event. In senior year she started doing theatre and made a whole new set of friends among the "drama kids". During the summers she worked as a cook and later assistant supervisor in the Berkeley camp in Yosemite, which involved responsibility, a lot of hard work - cooking 8 hours in a commercial kitchen during 100 degree heat waves - and, I'm told, some vigorous partying on days off. So Daughter-san is leaving high school as a much more outgoing, confident, social person than she entered. Her high school GPA is perhaps not, err, quite as good as it could have been had she remained less social, but it is pretty good, enough to get her into a good range of colleges. By the time she graduated from high school, she was Miss Popularity, with a whirlwind of parties and outings during the last month. She told me that, while fun, being so social was exhausting and she had started to turn down most invitations. Which was a relief to me, since I would like her to be a serious student in college in addition to having fun. She's back at camp cooking for half of this summer - a different Berkeley camp, after the Yosemite camp was burned to the ground last summer. She'll fly back to Oregon for college orientation in the middle of the summer, then will have the last month of summer free to relax and play with her brother before heading off to college. So there we are, all caught up. SWMBO and I are kid-free for a few weeks and even after DS gets back from his trip, life should be less hectic and I might even be able to do some cooking. Not that we've been starving, but the cooking here hasn't been interesting - just utility cooking. Hoping to change that this summer. Here is a link that might be useful: an online portfolio

Son had a large wedding and reception but because it was in the afternoon, no dancing. But if we did have a song it would be Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me." His small high school graduating class sang that to the parents then they gave the mom's a rose. Talk about crying! DIL knows what a close knit family we are and she loves how close I am to my son's. Now that she's a mother of a son she really understands the special bond between son and mother which is not like the old saying goes, "A son is a son until he takes a wife, a daugther is a daughter for the rest of her life." Heck, I still get onto my children! I'll always remember Barbara Bush speaking about Jr., "Just because he's the President doesn't mean he can put his feet on my coffee table!" lol

I loved watching the ice dancing and was so happy to see Tessa and Scott win the Gold. I have been following their skating career for a while now as they have a local connection. Tessa goes to school at the University of Windsor and both train in Canton, Michigan with the Davis and White the Silver Medalists. Tanith is Canadian also and became a US citizen so she could skate in the last Olympics. She also lived in this area while she trained in Canton. Susan, I remember my sister taking me to see Janet Lynn perform at the Olympia Arena in Detroit. I was very young but my sister who was 10 years older would always take me to the figure skating events. I also saw Peggy Flemming there and I still have my programme with her autograph. Sad news for our Canadian single skater Joannie Rochette. Her Mom had a heart attack and died 2 days ago in Vancouver where she came to see her daughter skate. She is going to skate tonight and I know I will shed a few tears for her as I watch her. Anne

we're Jewish; we just dance:) weddings are especially seen as a must-occasion to dance whether you move gracefully or not; most dances are fast; one has to be happy..and more than that, make groom and bride happy. so folks really go out of their way and just dance..on my first wedding that was a traditional one (it was not a big wedding but still around hundred people; we chose one of the cheaper hotels as our venue mostly since it had a view on Jerusalem hills..) and many hotel guests from other countries just came to watch the wedding. since guys made a huge rope out of hotel napkins tied together and were jumping that rope:) also since one's supposed to make a bride and a groom happy and to make them feel even more elated one of the traditions is to put a bride on one chair, a groom or another-and then several strong guys raise the chairs and dance with you in the air while you try to hold hands...when you're not holding onto that chair for dear life..:) that was kinda scary. But they didn't drop us. So if I sound sometimes like I've been dropped in my childhood too many times-it didn't happen on my first wedding:) (after the wedding, one Brazilian lady-who was amongst the enchanted watchers- talked me into giving her my wedding bouquet , with tears in her eyes, because, per her explanation, she needed good fortune or something. I saw her for the first time in my life and kinda wasn't inclined to..kinda at all..but she was so hysterical I of course gave her the bouquet..lol) (second wedding, I just put on my best jeans and we went to the local City Hall..so no wedding:) but I remember the first one quite warmly of course. even though the Rabbi was unexperienced, it was his first wedding ever and he was so anxious that he told us after the wedding it will be his last one too. LOL